Dame Alison Stewart announced as Royal Society Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellow

Congratulations to Emeritus Distinguished Professor Dame Alison Stewart for being elected as a Royal Society Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellow for her lifetime commitment to the control of plant diseases using the beneficial fungus Trichoderma.

Twenty-one new Ngā Ahurei Fellows have been elected to the Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. The fellowship recognises researchers, scholars and innovators throughout Aotearoa New Zealand who have achieved excellence in their various disciplines across science, technology and the humanities.

Emeritus Distinguished Professor Dame Alison Stewart is an internationally recognised plant pathologist and an expert in the control of plant diseases using beneficial micro-organisms. In 1998, she became the first woman to be promoted to Professor at Lincoln University.

Early in her career, Emeritus Distinguished Professor Stewart developed effective control strategies for economically important onion diseases. Concerned about the heavy use of agrichemicals in New Zealand, she focused her research on developing biological solutions, creating a unique collection of fungal strains that enabled rapid and effective bioactivity screening, leading to the development of several Trichoderma-based biofungicides. Her research has underpinned the commercialisation of six biobased products in New Zealand and the United States of America.

Read the full article from the Royal Society Te Apārangi here >>